July 17, 2018

Last Of The Summer Wine Series 6-10

Roy Clarke is the creator of Last Of The Summer Wine. He wrote all 295 episodes. Alan J W Bell produced and directed Series 6 - 10. Mixed in with the regular episodes of the show are all the Christmas Specials that appeared between 1981 and 1987. Series 10 in the DVD set is really part of Series 9. The episode count for Series 9 doubled to a dozen plus 3 Christmas Specials. The BBC repackaged the episodes into Series 9 and Series 10 when they sold them overseas. They continue to use that count. The Wikipedia entry lists 31 series. It makes you wish they would be consistent. Oh, well.

Peter Sallis, Bill Owen and Brian Wilde romp around the town for Series 6-8, then Micheal Aldridge takes over for Brian Wilde. Brian left to appear in his own TV series. I liked Brian's Foggy, but I'm not as fond of Michael's Seymour Utterthwaite. He's just that sort of guy, the kind you want to slap all the time. Seymour is brother to Thora Hird's character. She's really annoying too. The women of the show sure have some opinions on how men and women should behave. Still, you've got to laugh. That and be thankful that you aren't married to them. All that male and female friction makes some laughs. There's a good number of them in each episode and there are a variety. Verbal, physical, even silly signs.

As the series progresses we loose some characters and gain some others. I miss John Comer, he played the tea shop owner Sid, who died after the 1983 Christmas SpecialGetting Sam Home. We get Dame Thora Hird and Gordon Wharmby, they play Seymour's sister and brother-in-law. Sarah Thomas and Mike Grady join the cast, she's Thora's daughter and he's the son-in-law. They're all peculiar. So are the characters that Robert Fyfe, Juliette Kaplan and Jean Fergusson play. Robert's a bit of wet noodle, but he's got his eye on Jean, Juliette plays his wickedly dour wife.

The level of the writing continues to be strong, especially the dialog. Occasionally I think some of the slapstick could be less predicable. It's a minor quibble. I'm still having a laugh. Luckily there's plenty left.